"Delicious just about says it all: Sherry Thomas's second novel is a multi-course banquet of delectable story-telling,scrumptious characters, and delightful verbal treats."--TheRomanceReader.com

"Complex, beautifully realized characters bring to life a unique, multilayered story of love, loss, and reconciliation."--Starred Review, Library Journal

"[Sherry Thomas] dazzles with her intelligent, compelling story and memorable characters. This well-crafted romance places her among the very finest of the next generation of authors."--4.5 Star Review and Top Pick, Romantic Times

"Delicious is packed with engaging characters, gripping dialogue, a devious plot, steamy sex and smart writing. This is definitely an author on the rise. Another keeper! Get it!"--ReaderToReader.com

"Where to begin? The fantastic characterizations, the complicated story, the sheer romance or how it all ends? To repeat myself, it’s all just SO good! ."-- A Book Blogger's Diary

"So if you've worried (as I have) about the future of historical romance, just remember two words: Sherry Thomas. Readers, don't miss this one. It's a keeper and be very thankful that historical romance has a new, shining star."--TheRomanceReader.com

"Thomas makes a dazzling debut with a beautifully written, sizzling, captivating love story...Her compelling tale of love betrayed and then reborn will make you sigh with pleasure." --Romantic Times, 4 1/2-star review

"Ravishingly sinful, intelligent and addictive. An amazing debut."— Eloisa James, New York Times bestselling author

"Sherry Thomas breathes new life into the historical genre with her rich, sensual tale of estranged lovers finding the love that first brought them together. Private Arrangements requires a little scheduling of 'me time' because you’ll not want to be interrupted once you start."--Jane Litte, DearAuthor.com

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Give Me Sex or Give me Death

Apologies to Patrick Henry.

Way back—gosh, was it only six months ago?—when I sent off the partial for SCHEMES OF LOVE to Kristin Nelson, I wrote an accompanying cover letter that contained a “one paragraph blurb that summarizes your work and highlights your pitch” that she specified in her request.

Not being shy, I informed Kristin in the cover letter that my romance novel contained the best hook of all: mandatory sex. Yep, in those exact words. The heroine wants a divorce, the hero insists on an heir before he’d allow the divorce to go through. And we’ve got one very hot book.

There is a reason that romances with setups that stipulate mandatory sex—marriages of convenience, girl selling herself to the highest bidder, etc. etc.—remain perennially popular. We are, or at least I am, hardwired to enjoy the frisson we get when we know something steamy is afoot.

And for that very reason, I am usually drawn to write historical romances that take place in what I call a hermetically sealed bedroom. Hero, meet Heroine, meet Four-poster-bed. What do you mean you don’t know what to do? You are married, aren’t you? And even if you aren’t, you’ve signed a deal in blood to boink for three months straight. I have it right here in chapter three, so get on with it. And neither of you are allowed out until your cynical black hearts break a little bit.

I’m sure you see now why I was pulling my hair out over DELICIOUS. No mandatory sex. This couple, for perverse reasons that drive my muse to the opium den, do not need to sleep together. They want to, but they don’t need to, and the reasons against it are legion, and all I’ve got, in my puny armory of writerly devices, is whatever overriding passion I can foment in them.

And then, because I am a charter member of Romance Writers against Deliberate Character Manipulation, I can’t make the heroine run outside during a freezing downpour just so the hero can find her and strip her of her sodden night rail. Or put the hero in a hallucinating high fever, because damn it, she is his cook, not his maid or housekeeper, and she won’t be the one standing by his bedside should he yank someone down on top of himself. And even when I abandon my principles and have her get tipsy, he wouldn’t take advantage of her inebriation. What has the world come to, I ask you?

So what is a writer of reputedly hot romances to do? Write, I guess, and pray, and stake out all the opium dens nearby in case her muse wobbles out, ready to be taken home for some tender loving care.

Stay tuned for irregular future updates in The Mighty Struggle for a Good Shag.

Wow, what a problem to have! Your post made me laugh out loud. Mandatory sex. I don't think I've ever thought of that before. None of my 9 mss. has had mandatory sex in it...

Hmm, maybe that's my problem right there!!! (Though I can't think of a reason why contemporary characters would get roped into mandatory sex that wouldn't turn the reader off from page 1. Seems like a device that works much better in historicals.)